 | |
| Aiming at the Gold |
By R. Teichman, News Beacon Ireland
The French government has stated that:
“it would send 2,500 troops to support Malian
government soldiers in the conflict against Islamist rebels. France has already
deployed around 750 troops to Mali, and French carriers arrived in Bamako on
Tuesday morning…..
We will continue the deployment of forces on the
ground and in the air…..
We have one goal. To ensure that when we leave,
when we end our intervention, Mali is safe, has legitimate authorities, an
electoral process and there are no more terrorists threatening its territory.”
So this is the official narrative of France and
those who support it. And of course this is what is widely reported by the
mainstrem media.
France is supported by other NATO members. US
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta confirmed that the US was providing intelligence
to French forces in Mali Canada, Belgium, Denmark and Germany have also
publicly backed the French incursion, pledging logistical support in the
crackdown on the rebels.
If we are to believe this narrative we are
misled again about the real reasons. A look at Mali’s natural resources reveals
what this is really about.
Mali’s natural resource (emphasis added)
 |
| Bars Of Gold |
Gold: Mali: Africa’s third largest gold producer
with large scale exploration ongoing. Mali has been famous for its gold since
the days of the great Malian empire and the pilgrimage to Mecca of the Emperor
Kankou Moussa in 1324, on his caravan he carried more than 8 tonnes of gold!
Mali has therefore been traditionally a mining country for over half a
millennium.
Mali currently has seven operating gold mines
which include: Kalana and Morila in Southern Mali, Yatela, Sadiola and Loulo in
Western Mali, and mines which have recently restarted production notably Syama
and Tabakoto. Advanced gold exploration projects include: Kofi, Kodieran,
Gounkoto, Komana, Banankoro, Kobada and Nampala.
Uranium: encouraging signs and exploration in
full swing. Exploration is currently being carried out by several companies
with clear indications of deposits of uranium in Mali.
Uranium potential is
located in the Falea area which covers 150 km² of the Falea- North Guinea
basin, a Neoproterozoic sedimentary basin marked by significant radiometric
anomalies. Uranium potential in Falea is thought to be 5000 tonnes.
The Kidal
Project, in the north eastern part of Mali, with an area of 19,930 km2, the
project covers a large crystalline geological province known as L’Adrar Des
Iforas. Uranium potential in the Samit deposit, Gao region alone is thought to
be 200 tonnes.
Diamonds: Mali has potential to develop its
diamond exploration: in the Kayes administrative region (Mining region 1),
thirty (30) kimberlitic pipes have been discovered of which eight are show
traces of diamonds. Some eight small diamonds have been picked in the Sikasso
administrative region (southern Mali).
Precious stones consist of the following and can
be found in:
Circle of Nioro and Bafoulabe: Garnets and rare
magnetic mineralsCircle of Bougouni and Faleme Basin: Pegmatite mineralsLe
Gourma – garnet and corindonsL’Adrar des Ilforas – pegmatite and metamorphosing
mineralsHombori Douentza Zone: quartz and carbonates
Iron Ore, Bauxite and Manganese: significant
resources present in Mali but still unexploited. Mali has according to
estimates more than 2 million tonnes of potential iron ore reserves located
in the areas of Djidian-Kenieba, Diamou and Bale.
 |
| Bauxite |
Bauxite reserves
are thought to be 1.2 million tonnes located in Kita, Kenieba and Bafing-
Makana. Traces of manganese have been found in Bafing – Makana, Tondibi and
Tassiga.
Other mineral resources and potential in Mali
Calcarous rock deposits:
10 million tonnes est. ( Gangotery), 30 million tonnes est. ( Astro) and Bah El
Heri ( Nord de Goundam) 2.2 Million tonnes est.
 |
| Copper |
Copper:
potentialities in Bafing Makan ( Western Region) and Ouatagouna ( Northern
Region)Marble :
Selinkegny ( Bafoulabe) 10.6 MT estimated reserves and traces at MadibayaGypsum: Taoudenit ( 35 MT
est.), Indice Kereit ( Nord de Tessalit) 0.37 MT est.Kaolin: Potential
estimated reserves ( 1MT) located in Gao ( Northern Region)Phosphate: Reserve
located at Tamaguilelt, production of 18,000 t/per annum and an estimated
potential of 12 million tonnes. There are four other potential deposits in the
North of 10 million tonnes.
 |
| Lead |
Lead and zinc:
Tessalit in the Northern Region ( 1.7 MT of estimated reserves) and traces in
Bafing Makana ( Western Region) and Fafa (Northern Mali)
 |
| Lithium |
Lithium:
Indications in Kayes ( Western Region) and estimated potential of 4 million
tonnes in Bougouni ( Southern Region)Bitumen
schist: Potential estimated at 870 million tonnes, indications
found in Agamor and Almoustrat in the Northern Region.Lignite: Potential
estimated at 1.3 million tonnes, indications found in Bourem ( Northern Region)Rock Salt: Estimated
potential of 53 million tonnes in Taoudenni ( Northern Region)Diatomite: Estimated
potential of 65 million tonnes in Douna Behri ( Northern Region)
Mali’s Petroleum potential already
attracting significant interest from investors
Mali’s Petroleums potential has been documented
since the 1970’s where sporadic seismic and drilling revealed probable
indications of oil. With the increasing price of global oil and gas resources,
Mali has stepped up its promotion and research for oil exploration, production
and potential exports. Mali could also provide a strategic transport route for
Sub-Saharan oil and gas exports through to the Western world and there is the
possibility of connecting the Taoudeni basin to European market through
Algeria.
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| French President Francois Hollande |
Work has already begun to reinterpret previously
gathered geophysical and geological data collected, focussing on five
sedimentary basins in the North of country including: Taoudeni, Tamesna,
Ilumenden, Ditch Nara and Gao.
So here we have it
Whatever is reported by the mainstream media,
the goal of this new war is no other than stripping yet another country of its
natural resources by securing the access of international corporations to do
it. What is being done now in Mali through bombs and bullets is being done to
Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Spain by means of debt enslavement.
And the people suffer and die
The Guardian reported 2 days ago
“The human toll has not yet been calculated, but
a communique read on state television late Saturday said that at least 11
Malians were killed in Konna.
“Sory Diakite, the mayor of Konna, says the dead
included children who drowned after they threw themselves into a river in an
effort to escape the bombs.
“Others were killed inside their courtyards, or
outside their homes. People were trying to flee to find refuge. Some drowned in
the river. At least three children threw themselves in the river. They were
trying to swim to the other side. And there has been significant infrastructure
damage,” said the mayor, who fled the town with his family and is now in
Bamako.”
Who knows what the death toll is today.
God help any country and its people with natural
resources to be exploited.
EDITORIAL
STRANGE
Who can understand why West African Leaders are
jumping over themselves to support western intervention in Mali?
The claim that the whole world is teaming up to
drive terrorists out of Mali is just balderdash because the western countries
are busily nurturing terrorist organizations all over the globe.
In Syria, the West is fully collaborating with
terrorist organizations to overthrow the Assad government. It is supplying
weapons, giving training and providing diplomatic support for the terrorists.
It is also a fact at Quada and its affiliates
were created by the United States of America to join in the fight against what
was termed the “Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan”
Even the rebels in Mali received most of the
weapons from the French effort to overthrow the Gadafi regime in Libya.
For as, the objectives of the terrorist groups
and the West are the same, the maintenance of a decadent economic, political
and social system based on myths and anchored on the backward belief of the
inferiority of the masses.
The Western countries are in Mali to impose
their neo-colonial and develop a based for the control of West African oil
resources.
If African Leaders are seriously worried about
terrorist activities on the continent then we should ask the West to stop
creating and supporting the terrorists groups.
The behaviour of African Leaders is shocking
US military empire, financial fascists ready to wage multiple
wars
By Prof. Rodney Shakespeare
Firstly, America is now a hugely
aggressive, and very expensive, military empire. The latest news is that
American troops are going into thirty five African nations to create mayhem and
assassinate civilians; the USA has a seeming determination to precipitate a
Sino-Japanese war; and, in any case, with its foreign policy controlled by
Zionism and heavily influenced by the Christian Zionists, it is doing its best
to engineer some form of major war in the Middle East.”
An idea is going the rounds that the American Treasury should
mint a new coin. Not any old coin, but a $1,000,000,000,000 platinum one. If
the zeros are right, that’s one trillion dollars. And, as long as there is room
for some suitable words, it need not be very big either, only the size of an
existing coin.
The trillion-dollar coin would be deposited with the Federal Reserve and so improve the government’s account thereby enabling it to borrow another one trillion dollars and avoid the ‘fiscal cliff’ or debt limit. In this cunning way, the official legal debt limit would have been evaded.
Why one trillion? Well it’s a nice number, not too small and not so big that you cannot get it into one sentence. Moreover, and please do not laugh, there are those who say it could be two trillion and, as the situation is, it might well come to be.
Of course there are rotten spoilsports like the USA Treasury and the Federal Reserve who are saying that they will have nothing to do with a ridiculous idea. Which is brave talk because there is now the possibility that the one trillion platinum coin may be thrust upon them whether they like it or not. This is because the coin would temporarily alleviate the USA budget situation by allowing the government to carry on its present pattern of spending without for example, slashing welfare benefits or sharply raising taxes.
But only temporarily. The permanent underlying problems are not being addressed by the Democrats, the Republicans, the Treasury, the Federal Reserve or academics.
Firstly, America is now a hugely aggressive, and very expensive, military empire. The latest news is that American troops are going into thirty five African nations to create mayhem and assassinate civilians; the USA has a seeming determination to precipitate a Sino-Japanese war; and, in any case, with its foreign policy controlled by Zionism and heavily influenced by the Christian Zionists, it is doing its best to engineer some form of major war in the Middle East.
The USA
also has somewhere around nine hundred military bases around the world and, if
all its military expenditure were to be openly admitted, instead of disguised
in obfuscating accounts, it would probably be somewhere towards half of the
world’s total.
Secondly, gripped by elitist financial fascists and the military-industrial complex intent on enriching themselves at the expense of the middle classes, the USA has permanently exported the jobs of 56,000 commercial enterprises. The spending of each worker supports another four jobs so that, in all, thirty two million jobs have been lost for ever.
Secondly, gripped by elitist financial fascists and the military-industrial complex intent on enriching themselves at the expense of the middle classes, the USA has permanently exported the jobs of 56,000 commercial enterprises. The spending of each worker supports another four jobs so that, in all, thirty two million jobs have been lost for ever.
The trillion dollar platinum coin, therefore, not only increases the (already un-repayable) American national debt but does not address the profound structural problems. So its minting seems unlikely.
But watch this space. If the American politicians refuse to allow the debt limit to be raised and do not address the structural problems, the platinum coin may yet be minted, no matter how ‘ridiculous’ that is thought to be by the Treasury and Federal Reserve.
Does gold have anything to do with this?
Unfortunately, yes. The USA, UK and Japan are engaging in competitive devaluation which means they are printing money to try to lower the price of their exports and to stimulate their domestic economies. At some point, it may be sooner or later, although housewives and others are already sharply aware of rising prices, there will be big inflation.
On top of which many nations are no longer trading in US dollars but are preferring to make regional groupings using their local currencies or bartering. In short, the USA dollar is looking increasingly weak.
This matter is much more serious than it seems because many people believe that the gold alleged to be held in the Federal Reserve has already been pledged or lent so many times already that, even if it exists, any one piece of gold has several competing claims on it.
As a result big question marks exist over the actual existence of the USA’s gold, AND whether the gold of other countries, kept by the USA, really does exist, AND even whether such gold as the USA holds, really is gold or a lot of gold-coated tungsten bars.
Not surprisingly, therefore, possibly following Venezuela’s example or even the advice of financial journalist Max Keiser who, four years ago, memorably exhorted the German people to look after their gold, Germany’s central bank is planning to repatriate its gold from the USA Federal Reserve and elsewhere, including the UK. Germany, moreover, allegedly the trusting friend of France, is also repatriating its gold from Paris.
Other countries can be expected to follow the lead of Germany and, for that matter, of Venezuela.
But, however you look at it, all is not well not least because any gold in the Federal Reserve or the Bank of England, if not already pledged, could be pledged without the true owner knowing anything about it. In fact, the gold could simply be expropriated. As they say, possession is nine tenths of the law.
Not surprisingly, countries such as China believing, where countries are concerned, that a piece of gold in hand is worth two in the bush, are known to be building up huge gold reserves.
So the news about platinum and gold is telling us something. Although the platinum coin is really about egregious money printing and gold is about something which is substantially the opposite, both relate to an American economy and its politics which no longer serve the interests of its people let alone the rest of the world.
FRANCE
INVATION OF MALI PREPLANNED
The speed and
extent with which French warplanes were deployed in the West African country,
Mali, point to a well-honed plan for intervention by the former colonial power.
Indeed, such is the careful choreography of this salient military development that one could say that the French have finally given themselves a green light to execute a plan they had been pushing over several months. That plan is nothing less than the neocolonial re-conquest of its former colony in the strategically important West African region.
Within hours of the Malian government requesting military support to counter an advance by rebels from the northern territory, French warplanes began carrying out air strikes on Friday. The attack sorties have reportedly been conducted for at least three consecutive days. Media reports said that French Mirage and Rafale fighter jets had struck across a wide belt of the remote Sahelian country, from Gao and Kidal in the northeast, near the border with Algeria, to the western town of Lere, close to Mauritania.
The warplanes were dispatched from France and also reportedly from Chad. The French government claimed that it had been granted over-flight permission by Algeria. Both North African neighboring countries are also former French colonies.
The air strikes by the French jets on at least six widely dispersed target areas within Mali cover an operational distance of nearly 2,000 kilometers, from east to west. This level of co-ordination indicates several weeks of planning and belies the appearance that the French government was responding in an impromptu fashion to a sudden call for assistance from the Paris-aligned Malian authorities.
In addition, over the weekend some 500 French troops arrived in the southern Malian capital of Bamako and the strategic town of Mopti, which is situated near the rebel-held northern territory.
The
dramatic French intervention has all the hallmarks of a meticulous plan that
was on a hair-trigger for action. The taking over by rebels last Thursday of
the town of Konna, 45 kilometers from Mopti, near the de facto north-south
frontier, and the subsequent alarm call from the Malian government in Bamako
can therefore be seen as merely a green light for the detailed French plan to
swing into action.
Furthermore, the French government has received swift support from other European countries and the United States. Britain has sent RAF CI7 cargo planes from a base in East England to Paris in order to help with French supply of troops, helicopters, trucks other heavy equipment. Washington has said it will provide logistics and communications. Both American and French surveillance drones have been operational in Mali and adjacent countries for months now.
France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius was quick to hail the weekend air strikes a success in halting Malian “terrorists.” Fabius said the French military involvement would be for a “matter of weeks.” However, the extensive mobilization of troops and warplanes and the geopolitical backdrop to the development suggest otherwise. Perhaps mindful of this, Fabius was keen to emphasize that the Mali intervention would not turn out to be “another Afghanistan.”
Officially, Paris, London and Washington have up to now been pushing for an African-led intervention force to take the military lead in assisting the Malian government to quash a separatist rebellion in the northern half of the country. The northern region was taken over last April by Tuareg rebels in league with Islamist militia belonging to Ansar Dine and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa. The rebels have managed to consolidate their control over the vast and largely desert region around the main city of Timbuktu. Northern Mali covers an area the size of France and is sparsely populated with less than two million people.
West African states, including Nigeria, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Benin and Niger, are charged with assembling an intervention force at the behest of the Western powers. Last month, the United Nations Security Council gave final approval for the West African military mission to shore up the shaky government that is based in Bamako in the far south of the country, thousands of kilometers from the upper northern region.
Following the Security Council vote, diplomats at the UN and in West African capitals were talking about the combined African mission of some 3,500 troops being deployed much later this year, in September at the earliest. This was a view held by Romano Prodi, the UN’s top envoy to Mali, which was reported only days before the French military intervention.
The
abrupt side-stepping of the African forces points up the real agenda of the
Western powers and France in particular. What we are seeing now, with the
rapid, large-scale French deployment, is the true neocolonial nature of this
agenda. All the previous talk by Paris, London and Washington on the importance
of intervention having “an African face” can be seen as cynical cover for
direct Western action.
Only three months ago, President Francois Hollande vowed to French media that there would be “no French boots on the ground” in Mali. Evidently, official calculations have changed.
France and its Western allies have been assiduously taking up the international security threat allegedly posed by the rebels in Mali. Much is being made of alleged links between the Islamist militants and Al Qaeda in the Maghreb. President Hollande has repeatedly warned that French and European security is at risk if the rebels in Mali strengthen their control.
A spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron said at the weekend: “Both leaders [Cameron and Hollande] agreed that the situation in Mali poses a real threat to international security given the terrorist activity there.”
American politicians, military chiefs and media have also been waxing lyrical for months on how Mali represents the globe’s new “terror central” and that Western governments must act decisively to defeat the danger.
However, the precise nature of this “Islamist threat” from Mali is never spelled out or evidenced. We are expected to accept the word of Paris, London and Washington - the rogue states that have and are conducting illegal wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria.
 |
| French Soldiers |
What we do know, however, is that the half century post-colonial
borders of Mali are an alien imposition on nomadic peoples in the northern
region - cultures that date backed thousands of years. Their rebellion against
a remote and up to now indifferent colonialist-appointed administration in
Bamako is probably a just cause. The French and its Western allies are
therefore maligning an internal dispute within Mali with another specious “war
on terror” narrative and in that way these powers are giving themselves a
mandate to meddle in that country.
France being the former colonial master and with decades of covert military assets in the region is the “natural” choice among the Western powers to lead a neo-imperialist adventure in this strategically important region.
Mali has abundant riches in natural resources of metals and minerals. It is a major source of gold and uranium, as well as iron, copper, tin and manganese, and also versatile minerals such as phosphates, salt and limestone.
Moreover, the West Africa region has awesome potential for agriculture and oil. The Gulf of Guinea off Ghana and Nigeria is earmarked to become a leading oil and gas supply region to world markets in the coming years.
Military intervention by France and the other Western powers in Mali - under the guise of “defeating terrorism” - is a bridgehead for Western capital and corporations, not only into a resource-rich country, but into a large chunk of the entire African continent. In 2011, NATO’s bombardment of Libya and French subversion of elections in Cote D’Ivoire marked a new beginning of Western neo-imperialism in Africa. Mali is proving to be continuation of that dynamic and to be another staging post in this modern Scramble for Africa by Western powers.
Gung-ho French in another fatal
African attraction
But the French will find that they
cannot simply wash their hands of the imbroglio. The large-scale military
build-up by France has inevitably committed Paris to a long-term station, even
if it tries to resort to a background role. Already the initial French troop
deployment of 550 last week is set to multiply to 2,500 only a few days later.
President Hollande is saying that the France will stay in Mali until the
country is “safe and has a stable government."
 |
| French President Francois Hollande |
With France’s ignominious track
record for disastrous military adventures on the African continent - the 1956
Suez Crisis comes most to mind - one would think that the former colonial power
would have learned some prudence by now
But alas, no. The French charged into Mali last week with hundreds of troops, fighter jets and attack helicopters in a rash move that casts serious questions of legality and military viability. French state-of-the-art Rafale fighter jets have been bombing at least six towns across the north and central belt of the remote Sahel desert country for five consecutive days and counting. With hundreds more French troops on the way and French tanks arriving from neighboring Cote D’Ivoire, President Francois Hollande is in danger of leading his country into a fatal no-man’s land…
Hours after the French mobilization last Friday allegedly to save the Francophile administration in Mali from being over-run by rebels and Islamist militias from the northern territory, the Paris government was hailing the mission as a success. “We have halted the terrorists,” declared French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, while thanking British and American allies for supportive endorsements of his country’s action.
However, over the weekend the situation has turned decidedly pear-shaped for gung-ho France. A French helicopter pilot has been killed and there are unconfirmed reports of several civilian deaths from the airstrikes. Some 230,000 civilians have been displaced in the impoverished and drought-stricken country of 16 million.
More worrying for the French authorities, the separatist northern rebels seem to have quickly recovered from the initial aerial onslaught. While the French air force are still trying to help the Malian army retake the central town of Konna, which fell into rebel hands last Thursday - sparking France’s intervention - insurgents have outflanked their enemy and have pushed further south towards the capital Bamako. Earlier this week, rebels captured the town of Diabaly - only 350 kilometers from Bamako - and are threatening to penetrate well beyond the de facto north-south frontier that came into effect last April, when the Tuareg rebels and Islamists belonging to Ansar Dine and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA) declared autonomy in the northern territory.
While the French are busy bombing towns in the centre and far north such as Douentza, Gao and Kidal - said to be rebel strongholds - the insurgents have moved behind French and Malian forces located in central Mopti. Even at this early stage, the ostensible French objective of stabilizing the country has led to greater instability, and has served to expose the Bamako government as weaker than ever before.
Also worrying for Hollande is the fate of nine French hostages; eight in Mali and another believed to be still alive in Somalia. Last Friday within hours of the French intervention in Mali, its special forces botched a daring raid to rescue the hostage being held in the eastern Horn of Africa by the Islamist group, Al Shabab, in Somalia. Two French soldiers were officially killed in a fire-fight with the hostage takers. Local people say that eight civilians were also killed, allegedly by some 50 French marines when they first landed near Bulo Marer, south of the capital Mogadishu. Locals also claim that more French personnel were fatally wounded than the Paris government is acknowledging at this stage. Al Shabab have since posted images of one of the dead French soldiers on the Internet with taunting messages - “Was it worth it?” - to President Hollande.
The fate of the French captive in Somalia, Denis Allex, an intelligence officer, remains in the balance, with the French authorities bracing for more macabre and embarrassing news of his whereabouts in the coming days.
Islamist leader in Mali, Omar Ould Hamaha, told French media that Hollande’s government has “opened the gates of hell” and has fallen into “a trap worse than Afghanistan”.
Another Islamist leader, Abou Dardar, of the MUJWA, gave this grim warning in the light of the French actions. “France has attacked Islam. We will strike at the heart of France. Everywhere. In Bamako, in Africa, in Europe.”
With some 30,000 French civilian expatriates residing in its former African colonies, these threats of reprisals are grave cause for concern. The French authorities seem to have recklessly jettisoned the safety of these hostages and expatriates with their macho display of militarism.
And with events rapidly turning awry for the French in two far-flung African countries, one wonders how Francois Hollande will extricate his country from the unfolding mess?
But alas, no. The French charged into Mali last week with hundreds of troops, fighter jets and attack helicopters in a rash move that casts serious questions of legality and military viability. French state-of-the-art Rafale fighter jets have been bombing at least six towns across the north and central belt of the remote Sahel desert country for five consecutive days and counting. With hundreds more French troops on the way and French tanks arriving from neighboring Cote D’Ivoire, President Francois Hollande is in danger of leading his country into a fatal no-man’s land…
Hours after the French mobilization last Friday allegedly to save the Francophile administration in Mali from being over-run by rebels and Islamist militias from the northern territory, the Paris government was hailing the mission as a success. “We have halted the terrorists,” declared French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, while thanking British and American allies for supportive endorsements of his country’s action.
However, over the weekend the situation has turned decidedly pear-shaped for gung-ho France. A French helicopter pilot has been killed and there are unconfirmed reports of several civilian deaths from the airstrikes. Some 230,000 civilians have been displaced in the impoverished and drought-stricken country of 16 million.
More worrying for the French authorities, the separatist northern rebels seem to have quickly recovered from the initial aerial onslaught. While the French air force are still trying to help the Malian army retake the central town of Konna, which fell into rebel hands last Thursday - sparking France’s intervention - insurgents have outflanked their enemy and have pushed further south towards the capital Bamako. Earlier this week, rebels captured the town of Diabaly - only 350 kilometers from Bamako - and are threatening to penetrate well beyond the de facto north-south frontier that came into effect last April, when the Tuareg rebels and Islamists belonging to Ansar Dine and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA) declared autonomy in the northern territory.
While the French are busy bombing towns in the centre and far north such as Douentza, Gao and Kidal - said to be rebel strongholds - the insurgents have moved behind French and Malian forces located in central Mopti. Even at this early stage, the ostensible French objective of stabilizing the country has led to greater instability, and has served to expose the Bamako government as weaker than ever before.
Also worrying for Hollande is the fate of nine French hostages; eight in Mali and another believed to be still alive in Somalia. Last Friday within hours of the French intervention in Mali, its special forces botched a daring raid to rescue the hostage being held in the eastern Horn of Africa by the Islamist group, Al Shabab, in Somalia. Two French soldiers were officially killed in a fire-fight with the hostage takers. Local people say that eight civilians were also killed, allegedly by some 50 French marines when they first landed near Bulo Marer, south of the capital Mogadishu. Locals also claim that more French personnel were fatally wounded than the Paris government is acknowledging at this stage. Al Shabab have since posted images of one of the dead French soldiers on the Internet with taunting messages - “Was it worth it?” - to President Hollande.
The fate of the French captive in Somalia, Denis Allex, an intelligence officer, remains in the balance, with the French authorities bracing for more macabre and embarrassing news of his whereabouts in the coming days.
Islamist leader in Mali, Omar Ould Hamaha, told French media that Hollande’s government has “opened the gates of hell” and has fallen into “a trap worse than Afghanistan”.
Another Islamist leader, Abou Dardar, of the MUJWA, gave this grim warning in the light of the French actions. “France has attacked Islam. We will strike at the heart of France. Everywhere. In Bamako, in Africa, in Europe.”
With some 30,000 French civilian expatriates residing in its former African colonies, these threats of reprisals are grave cause for concern. The French authorities seem to have recklessly jettisoned the safety of these hostages and expatriates with their macho display of militarism.
And with events rapidly turning awry for the French in two far-flung African countries, one wonders how Francois Hollande will extricate his country from the unfolding mess?
 |
| UN Security Council |
For several months now, France has been pushing for an international
intervention in Mali to quash the rebellious northern territory. Hollande has
been portraying Mali as a haven for Islamic fundamentalists, which allegedly
poses an imminent security threat as a launch pad for terrorism in Europe. This
alarming view has been echoed by the American and British governments. At the
end of last year, the head of US AFRICOM General Carter Ham characterized Mali
as the new global base for al-Qaeda. Ironically, while the Western allies have
been talking up the threat of Islamic terrorism in Mali, these same powers are
in cahoots with similar Jihadi militants trying to overthrow the government of
President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
There is more than a suspicion that the alleged Islamist threat in Mali is being inflated by France and its Western allies as a cynical pretext for yet another military campaign in Africa in pursuit of what are naked imperialist interests. Mali, and the West Africa region generally, is endowed with superabundant natural resources of oil, gas, minerals, ores, metals and agriculture - resources that remain mainly untapped and coveted by Western capital.
Another irony is that the flow of weapons and militants into northern Mali can be linked directly to NATO’s assisted overthrow of the government in Libya at the end of 2011. Following the downfall of Muammar Gaddafi, many of the militants that were supporting his regime returned to their nomadic bases in northern Mali, taking their weapons with them. The security threat in the region, such as it is, is therefore a by-product of NATO’s intervention in Libya, which the French in particular were ardent proponents of.
Nevertheless, those contradictions aside, the Western powers have been urging the 15-nation West African bloc, ECOWAS, to mount a military mission into Mali to shore up the shaky government in Bamako and to crush the northern separatists. Last month, at the behest of Paris, Washington and London, the United Nations Security Council finally gave qualified approval for the African-led mission into Mali. However, that intervention was not anticipated until much later this year, in September at the earliest, pending the acquisition of funding, training and logistics for the nascent and largely untested ECOWAS force.
A week before the UNSC vote in December, the Malian interim Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra was bounced out of office by Mali’s military junta, led by the American-trained Captain Amadou Sanogo Western diplomats then got nervous, including the Americans. They began emphasizing the need for cautious planning by the African intervention force in coordination with their Malian military counterparts. Notably, by contrast, the French threw caution to the wind and became singularly even more gung-ho. Philippe Lalliot, a French foreign ministry spokesman, said then “these developments underline the need for the rapid deployment of an African stabilization force.”
And it was largely due to French soliciting that the UNSC gave the go-ahead for the African-led ECOWAS mission into Mali on December 20.
What is now clear is that French ambitions for intervention in Mali have jumped the gun. Not willing to wait for the combined African force to mount its operations later this year, as most diplomats were assuming, the French have decided to go it alone.
There is more than a suspicion that the alleged Islamist threat in Mali is being inflated by France and its Western allies as a cynical pretext for yet another military campaign in Africa in pursuit of what are naked imperialist interests. Mali, and the West Africa region generally, is endowed with superabundant natural resources of oil, gas, minerals, ores, metals and agriculture - resources that remain mainly untapped and coveted by Western capital.
Another irony is that the flow of weapons and militants into northern Mali can be linked directly to NATO’s assisted overthrow of the government in Libya at the end of 2011. Following the downfall of Muammar Gaddafi, many of the militants that were supporting his regime returned to their nomadic bases in northern Mali, taking their weapons with them. The security threat in the region, such as it is, is therefore a by-product of NATO’s intervention in Libya, which the French in particular were ardent proponents of.
Nevertheless, those contradictions aside, the Western powers have been urging the 15-nation West African bloc, ECOWAS, to mount a military mission into Mali to shore up the shaky government in Bamako and to crush the northern separatists. Last month, at the behest of Paris, Washington and London, the United Nations Security Council finally gave qualified approval for the African-led mission into Mali. However, that intervention was not anticipated until much later this year, in September at the earliest, pending the acquisition of funding, training and logistics for the nascent and largely untested ECOWAS force.
A week before the UNSC vote in December, the Malian interim Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra was bounced out of office by Mali’s military junta, led by the American-trained Captain Amadou Sanogo Western diplomats then got nervous, including the Americans. They began emphasizing the need for cautious planning by the African intervention force in coordination with their Malian military counterparts. Notably, by contrast, the French threw caution to the wind and became singularly even more gung-ho. Philippe Lalliot, a French foreign ministry spokesman, said then “these developments underline the need for the rapid deployment of an African stabilization force.”
And it was largely due to French soliciting that the UNSC gave the go-ahead for the African-led ECOWAS mission into Mali on December 20.
What is now clear is that French ambitions for intervention in Mali have jumped the gun. Not willing to wait for the combined African force to mount its operations later this year, as most diplomats were assuming, the French have decided to go it alone.
Washington
and London have both publicly expressed support for the latest French
intervention in Mali, even though it seems that these allies were taken by
surprise by the French initiative. In retrospect, there seems to have been a
subterranean clash of intentions between the Western powers with regard to
Mali. Washington, which has spent some USD600 million over several years
training the Malian army and developing close links, appears to have shared the
Malian military’s more gradualist approach to implementing a counterinsurgency
strategy in the north. The deposed premier Diarra, who was aligned with Paris,
wanted a more immediate military solution in combination with the ECOWAS force
- which also seems to have been the French preferred option.
The question is: was the removal of Diarra last month an American-inspired spanner in the wheel for hasty French military ambitions in Mali?
France has evidently pushed ahead with the military agenda in Mali, and while the Americans appear supportive for now, at least in public, one wonders if there are not concerns in Washington and London that Paris has impetuously broken ranks and created an incendiary situation in Mali. Not only in Mali, but in Somalia and elsewhere across Africa. The closure of borders by neighboring Algeria this week is indicative of apprehensions that the French may have unleashed instability across the Sahel.
A headline on France 24 mid-week may reveal more than was intended: “France seeks allies in Mali operation”. For a start, the word “operation” is something of a trite euphemism. A more accurate term would be “aggression”. The UNSC approval for the African-led ECOWAS force at the end of last month was not the final green light. The force was obliged to subsequently clear its plans in Mali with the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon once they had been assembled - most likely taking several more months. So, the French intervention in Mali does not strictly have a UNSC mandate and therefore its legality is disputable.
On the
face of it, France has acted unilaterally and without authorization, that is,
illegally. As if by way of an afterthought, the UNSC has this week unanimously
endorsed the French action, but the fact remains that France had already
embarked on a military attack on a sovereign country, without any legal
mandate. Only a few months ago, Francois Hollande was talking up a “reset” in
French relations with its former colonies in Africa, in an attempt to convey a
new hands-off approach by the old colonial master. Hollande also vowed back in
October that with regard to Mali there would be “no French military boots on
the ground”. That supposed reset in French foreign relations now stands as a
cynical shambles.
Despite the initial crowing of military success at halting the terrorists in Mali, the French government seems to be back-pedaling. French Foreign Minister Fabius has now taken to emphasizing that his country’s military involvement was only ever meant to be “a short term” contingency. He said it would be “over in a matter of weeks” and was aimed at paving the way for the African-led military mission of the ECOWAS bloc. Sure enough, troops from neighboring Nigeria, Senegal, Benin, Niger and Togo are due to start arriving in Mali over the coming days and weeks. This deployment is months ahead of what was envisaged at the UN.
Thus it would seem that the French, having gauchely jumped into Mali, are now set to hand over the problem of containing the ensuing instability to Africans.
But the French will find that they cannot simply wash their hands of the imbroglio. The large-scale military build-up by France has inevitably committed Paris to a long-term station, even if it tries to resort to a background role. Already the initial French troop deployment of 550 last week is set to multiply to 2,500 only a few days later. President Hollande is saying that the France will stay in Mali until the country is “safe and has a stable government”.
There is also a question of the military viability of the planned African-led mission, which is being lined up to take over from the French. Some 3,500 ECOWAS troops are to join a ramshackle Malian army of 6,000. The knitting together of these disparate units is untested and dubious. The Malian military brass has expressed discontent about the prospect of foreign forces interfering in its territory - albeit under the remit of neighborly cooperation. It should be noted too that the ECOWAS mission is to be headed up by Nigeria, whose military has a notorious record of indiscipline and violations among its own population.
Assuming the military coalition can find a modicum of collaboration, the next major problem is how it will engage the northern guerrilla. Mali’s upper territory covers an area the size of France or the state of Texas. Yet the population is less than two million. It is an unforgiving barren terrain of endless Saharan desert that the nomadic people and their fighters have mastered over many centuries. Hunting down guerrilla in this vast emptiness is like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack - a task that will not be lessened even with the promised French, American and British surveillance drones.
Added to this challenge are the facts that the military from the ECOWAS countries have previously only had light peacekeeping experience in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Now, they are expected to take on battle-hardened and well-armed guerrilla, which the French have already found out to their cost this past week. Plus, the dark-skinned ECOWAS forces from Sub-Saharan African countries are going into unknown territory to confront light-skinned Tuareg and Berbers residing among an indistinguishable civilian population. That’s tantamount to putting a target sign on the backs of these neophyte ECOWAS soldiers. And although the French and their NATO allies probably were counting on taking a backseat planning role in Mali’s counterinsurgency war, these powers are at risk of being dragged into a frontline deployment in a bid to salvage the inevitable military losses. Assuming, of course, that the Americans and British imperialist “friends” don’t leave the French high and dry in the Malian desert. Echoes of Suez there.
All in all, there is a doomed sense of déjà vu in Mali. Another French military disaster in Africa looms. Plus ca change…
French
operations in Mali: Conflict by design
Exactly as predicted, the ongoing French
"intervention" in the North African nation of Mali has spilled into
Algeria - the next most likely objective of Western geopolitical interests in
the region since the successful destabilization of Libya in 2011.In last week's "France Displays Unhinged Hypocrisy as Bombs Fall on Mali" report, it was stated specifically that:
"As far back as August of 2011, Bruce Riedel out of the corporate-financier funded think-tank, the Brookings Institution, wrote "Algeria will be next to fall," where he gleefully predicted success in Libya would embolden radical elements in Algeria, in particular AQIM. Between extremist violence and the prospect of French airstrikes, Riedel hoped to see the fall of the Algerian government. Ironically Riedel noted:
And thanks to NATO, that is exactly what Libya has become - a Western sponsored sanctuary for Al-Qaeda. AQIM's headway in northern Mali and now French involvement will see the conflict inevitably spill over into Algeria. It should be noted that Riedel is a co-author of ‘Which Path to Persia?’ which openly conspires to arm yet another US State Department-listed terrorist organization (list as #28), the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) to wreak havoc across Iran and help collapse the government there - illustrating a pattern of using clearly terroristic organizations, even those listed as so by the US State Department, to carry out US foreign policy."
Now, it is reported that "Al Qaeda-linked" terrorists have seized American hostages in Algeria in what is being described by the Western press as "spill over" from France's Mali operations.
The Washington Post, in their article, "Al-Qaida-linked militants seize BP complex in Algeria, take hostages in revenge for Mali," claims:
"As Algerian army helicopters clattered overhead deep in the Sahara desert, Islamist militants hunkered down for the night in a natural gas complex they had assaulted Wednesday morning, killing two people and taking dozens of foreigners hostage in what could be the first spillover from France’s intervention in Mali."
The Wall Street Journal, in its article, "Militants Grab U.S. Hostages in Algeria," reports that:
"Militants with possible links to al Qaeda seized about 40 foreign hostages, including several Americans, at a natural-gas field in Algeria, posing a new level of threat to nations trying to blunt the growing influence of Islamist extremists in Africa. As security officials in the U.S. and Europe assessed options to reach the captives from distant bases, Algerian security forces failed in an attempt late Wednesday to storm the facility."
The WSJ also added:
"Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the U.S. would take ‘necessary and proper steps’ in the hostage situation, and didn't rule out military action. He said the Algeria attack could represent a spillover from Mali."
And it is military action, both covert and incrementally more overt, that will see the West's extremist proxies and the West's faux efforts to stem them, increasingly creep over the Mali-Algerian border, as the old imperial maps of Europe are redrawn right before our eyes.
Image: The French Empire at its height right before the World Wars. The regions that are now Libya, Algeria, Mali, and the Ivory Coast all face reconquest by the French and Anglo-Americans, with French troops literally occupying the region and playing a pivotal role in installing Western-friendly client regimes. Also notice Syria, too, was a French holding - now under attack by US-British-French funded, armed, and backed terrorists - the same terrorists allegedly being fought in Mali and now Algeria.
Meanwhile, these very same terrorist forces continue to receive funding, arms, covert military support, and diplomatic recognition in Syria, by NATO, and specifically the US and France who are both claiming to fight the "Free Syrian Army's" ideological and very literal allies in North Africa.
In reality, Al-Qaeda is allowing the US and France to intervene and interfere in Algeria, after attempts in 2011 to trigger political subversion was soundly defeated by the Algerian government. Al-Qaeda is essentially both a casus belli and mercenary force, deployed by the West against targeted nations. It is clear that French operations seek to trigger armed conflict in Algeria as well as a possible Western military intervention the re as well, with the Mali conflict serving only as a pretense.
